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Gottschalk v. Benson ruling by US Supreme Court on 20 November 1972
Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972) was a case in the Supreme Court of the USA.
This was the first of the patentable subject matter "trilogy", along with Parker v. Flook (1978) and Diamond v. Diehr (1981).
Excerpts
This ruling formed the basis of the 2008 in re Bilski ruling's particular machine or transformation test:
Transformation and reduction of an article 'to a different state or thing' is the clue to the patentability of a process claim that does not include particular machines.
It also affirmed that adding a computer is not enough to make a idea patentable:
The mathematical procedures can be carried out in existing computers long in use, no new machinery being necessary. And, as noted, they can also be performed without a computer.
